


Happy Ending

by Tazmy



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-10
Updated: 2015-08-10
Packaged: 2018-04-13 23:10:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4541049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tazmy/pseuds/Tazmy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When the timeline begins to rupture, it is up to Rodney to save the universe from nonexistence.  Can he use this opportunity to save Caron and Elizabeth?  At what cost?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Happy Ending

**Author's Note:**

> Despite the beginning, this is not a character death fic.

 

When Rodney died he continued to work fervently to save everyone. He only briefly registered the explosion as a bright light followed by horrific pain and then nothingness. Movement ceased. Sound ceased. He ceased.

The latter didn't make sense, however, because he still typed away on his keyboard desperate to save the day and stop the explosion from killing the handful of scientists and marines in the room. He kept typing. Even after the explosion slammed into him. Even after he died.

"No no no no." If Rodney typed then Rodney lived. Contrapositively, if Rodney did not live then he could not type. Rodney was still typing away therefore he was still alive. QED

He remembered dying. He'd almost died so many times in the past. He'd even almost ascended. Somehow, this seemed different.

He shouldn't have died this way, failing to stop an explosion that shouldn't have existed in the first place with his team off on another world and not even able to see his heroic attempts to save everyone. No, if Rodney McKay were to die he was going to go out saving people and not failing. He would go out with his team beside him, comforting him, telling him he'd done well and that they wouldn't leave his side.

Even as Rodney continued typing, he noticed the empty room. He noted the lack of sound. He felt the lack of air. His chest did not move. His heart did not beat. He paused briefly to verify his lack of pulse then whimpered softly.

If a person had no pulse then they were dead. Conversely, if a person was dead then they had no pulse. _I have no pulse if and only if I am dead._

It was a weak argument, he realized. He could be hallucinating or dreaming. It would hardly be the first time. Maybe he had a pulse but his unconscious mind expected to find none so it found none. Maybe the ancients were playing with him. Maybe he was in a coma, only knocked about by the explosion. Maybe he'd suffered a delusional, mental break.

No. He remembered dying. He _did_ die.

" _What's happening, McKay?" Lorne asked, not bothering to hide his panic._

" _I don't know! I must have activated a failsafe. There's at least another twenty minutes of work to get into the mainframe and we don't have that long. We have to get out of here."_

" _That's going to be a problem!" Lorne pointed toward the blocked entrance where soldiers raced to keep the doors from sealing closed but they were too late._

" _This is not good!" Rodney shouted while he typed away, desperate for a solution. Light consumed the room. The explosion slammed him into the nearest bulkhead. He barely felt the pain before everything stopped._

Yet he didn't die. He still remained.

Beyond the silence he could sense so much more. He sensed all the Ancients living in ascension and he was not part of them but he knew them. He sensed all of time passing somewhere far away.

_He heard John storm out mid-eulogy only for Ronon to stop him and help him back to the microphone. He felt Teyla's tears. He smelled Ronon's sweat from hours of overworking himself in the gym._

" _Radek turned down Rodney's spot on the team," Sheppard explained to Teyla only a few weeks later. They sat on Rodney's bed. All of Rodney's stuff remained as they were at the time of his death, right up to the clothes on his floor._

" _He is not a fool. While Dr. Zelenka is a capable scientist, he also knows how many times Rodney almost died. Either he is convinced Rodney will come back or he fears ending up the same."_

_Ronon wasn't in the room, Rodney realized. He was three floors down pounding away at a defenseless punching bag and whatever Marine stupid enough to try training with him._

" _I can't do this," John said, trembling._

" _I understand," Teyla reassured him placing her hand on his shoulder. Though he flinched slightly, he allowed the hand to remain._

Time moved differently. The room passed away with his body as he realized he wasn't really typing and he wasn't really fighting explosions. He wasn't even really at his funeral or in John's quarters. With his thoughts intact but not his heartbeat, he struggled to understand where he was.

The breaking machinery had been some sort of time machine or parallel universe traveling device or something Rodney couldn't quite figure out but somehow he knew it had done this to him. He doubted this was the machines purpose but somehow it had turned him into something new-something different.

Knowledge flooded him and suddenly the genius of Rodney McKay as a living scientist seemed nothing compared to the knowledge of Rodney McKay as whatever he was now. Not really ascended, he realized, something more.

If he thought to any instance, he was there.

" _You and the Colonel really need to stop finding trouble!" Carson admonished while fiddling with Rodney's IV._

" _Yes, because we're trying to get ourselves injured," he answered as always, never holding back his sarcasm. Sarcasm was safe. It kept him grounded._

_Rodney tried to get out of bed but Carson gently placed a hand on his chest, keeping him down. "Careful now. You're going to be okay but it's going to take a while."_

As the familiar scene vanished, Rodney struggled to place it in time. He could not as too often he'd lived through the same.

He held to this piece of Carson, wishing he could do more than observe. He wanted to reach out and take Carson's hand. To thank him. To keep him real.

He moved in time to Elizabeth and Antarctica. Her calm kindness an anchor in his sea of doubts.

" _You're not like the others," he admitted to her._

" _Really? How is that?"_

_He struggled to find the right words but they never really came. How did one sum up Elizabeth and what she'd done for him? She was the first person to be nice to him-the first person to not push him away._

_The scene never really happened, he realized. Just a possibility in a sea of many more. He missed her so much just like he missed so many others._

He moved forward. The colors of time swirled around him, lighting the way to his new destination.

" _You can't expect me to just leave her out there!" Rodney shouted at John. John leaned against his chair, shoulders arched forward, his arms trembling from the weight of his actions._

" _Elizabeth understood. This is the only way."_

" _You're wrong," Rodney insisted. He too shook as he yelled._

" _This is how it has to be."_

" _You've said that a lot lately." Rodney stared out at the gate where Elizabeth and the remaining Asurans stepped to their deaths. "We killed her," Rodney said, this time calmly. He lowered himself to the floor where he curled in a ball, uncaring who might see him. "I killed her."_

He more than saw the memory, he lived it again and again in this strange world where he was out of time and out of place. Dead or maybe not dead. Ascended but not ascended.

He watched again and again as she sacrificed herself. He wondered briefly if that was to be all of their fates eventually. Sacrificial death.

Knowledge continued to flood him. He knew all that the ascended did and somehow more. He understood the device that he'd failed to fix. He could go back and see the ancient scientist working on it, madly trying to fix some world lost in time.

Rodney traveled through world after world and time after time all in an instant or maybe all in an eternity. Such words seemed meaningless now or maybe they'd never held so much meaning. He wasn't sure which was more accurate.

This wasn't what death should have looked like. He'd always feared nothingness but never allowed himself to believe in anything else. Ascension was always a possibility in his mind but he'd never really known if he'd wanted to be without the ability to act. He knew there was no heaven and no hell but this seemed as close to hell as he could come because now he knew too much and all his hope and all his dreams were just gone but he still remained.

The machine did this to him, partly. Maybe the rest was his mind. Maybe something else was involved, he didn't know, but somehow he lived and he hated it.

He tried to travel to a happier place. A day with his team watching movies and talking. Carson watched with them along with Weir. All of them happy and pleased with themselves, ignorant of their dreary futures. Life on Atlantis at its best.

He thought of Jennifer and longed for her touch. He watched her pick up his picture and curl into bed holding it onto her chest. He shook away the vision and moved somewhere-anywhere-else.

He failed.

He tried to move to another moment but failed again.

Feelings overcame him. In a moment he could feel pain and hurt all over and he was screaming in pain without a voice. The Rodney entity tore in separate directions as time itself started to disintegrate around him.

Oh god, he realized, as time continued to pull him from all directions. Somehow he understood the problem instantly. He saw himself telling Sheppard of a history that needed to be prevented. Time tore as Sheppard traveled back 48,000 years. 48,000 years of civilizations undone or rather lived in a parallel world. 48,000 years of wars and life reborn. It was almost too much for time. It'd almost broken at that moment.

Time changed over and over again by his team and by others. They weren't the first. They also weren't the last. Time began to unravel. Parallel universes stopped existing.

Then Rodney went and blew up that machine and the universe said enough. Time could no longer hold itself together. Soon everything would end. Soon it would never have begun.

Something understood this.

Something brought him here. Made him like this. This something allowed him to understand.

Maybe it was something. Maybe it was him.

_I have to fix this._

The concept of sealing time came to him in a flash and he knew right away it was the only way to make this happen. Seal time. He could fix the universe. He just had to choose a time to make the true one while the others dissipated into lost possibilities.

With a thought he could travel anywhere in time. With another thought he could freeze the universe in waiting. Movement paused. Conversations stopped. Nothingness veiled over all the worlds.

He could stop the wraith from ever waking. He could stop the wraith from ever _existing_. But at what cost? He had to know. Somehow he traveled back and allowed the universe to continue.

_So many lives remained. Pegasus continued, empty, lost and torn but free from the Hoffan Disease at least. No Michael. That was something._

_He lived in Atlantis. Every day brought some adventure-life with Sheppard and Teyla and Ford._

_He searched for Ronon and found him. The galaxy didn't seem so large anymore, surely one large runner with a crazy ability to survive wouldn't go to unnoticed._

" _Who did you say you were again?" Ronon asked._

" _A friend. We're all your friends and we're here to rescue you."_

" _I don't know you."_

" _But you will."_

_Eventually Ronon followed them home. It took longer than before to earn his trust._

_Carson died at the ripe age of 85._

_Rodney, John, Ronon, and Teyla lived together in a cabin on a distant planet, growing old. They were happy._

_Something happened. In a moment, a second, all was lost. The timeline shattered. All unraveled as it had before only this time with more death, more pain, an entire galaxy destroyed. Time disintegrated into nothingness. Nothing existed._

Entity Rodney came back to himself, reaching for a world that could not be. The universe refused him this sanctuary though he did not understand why. He could not change so much. Perhaps something smaller.

He remembered Carson and exploding tumors. Seriously. Exploding tumors. This alone proved the universe contained a demented, sick sense of humor.

He could save Carson.

_Rodney started time again. Carson and Rodney were out of the pier, watching the waves tumble onto Atlantis's docks._

" _Will you stop looking at me like that? It's downright creepy, Rodney."_

" _Sorry. It's just so great to see you."_

" _Seeing as I just saw you last night, I'm guessing something happened. Well, out with it then, what craziness are we about this time?"_

_Carson married Cadman in a beautiful ceremony. They left Pegasus and maybe that was for the best. Rodney watched them go feeling like he lost his friend all over again, but this time it was different. This time Carson was alive._

_Elizabeth and Rodney visited Carson, glad to find him happy._

" _It just doesn't feel right," Carson said, nursing his coffee._

" _What's that?" Elizabeth asked._

" _I dunno. Can't place my finger on it, but I still can't shake that eerie feeling. Something just ain't right."_

_The world flashed away. Time disintegrated once more._

If Entity Rodney had a body, he'd be a shivering mess of a blob. Why did the universe hate him so? Why couldn't he have his happy ending? He could change time but only for a moment then it would all be gone, lost in the nonexistence. Nothing would survive.

He couldn't change time, he realized. He could live the other life as the entity. He could dream of the possibilities, but in the end all possibilities led to the same road: destruction for all. Nothingness.

As time continued to rip apart, he felt himself tear between the timelines and the parallel universes. He understood. Of all the time lines and all the parallel worlds, only one was not an illusion. The rest existed because of the first and only because of the first. The other worlds were distorted reflections and nothing more.

He had to keep the right timeline- _his_ timeline-and freeze the rest. He could change a day at most and nothing more.

It still wouldn't be enough. Burdened by more knowledge than he'd ever imagined, he could see the universe disintegrate in millions of ways. Hundreds. Thousands. Nothing would ever be enough.

Unless…

He could change the timeline if he froze the world around him. A bubble of protection. A single galaxy saved in a universe of nothingness. Yes, the universe could handle one galaxy in one time. It was the only way to save anyone.

If he did this, everyone else would be lost. He would be damning them to non-existence.

 _-No,_ came an unfamiliar, gentle voice. Warmth surrounded Entity Rodney.

 _-Who are you?_ he asked, without his voice.

_-I AM._

_-Oh, please, that is not an answer!_

_-Believe of me what you wish._

_-Are you the one doing this? Are you the one destroying everyone?_

_-No. You are. I've come to help you prevent this destruction._

_-How? Please, tell me how to save them all._

_-The point of disintegration is clear._

_-Me?_

_-You. Your team. Yes._

_-We changed too much._

_-Yes._

Rodney understood. The trouble was not where to restart time but where to stop time. The true timeline demanded stability and justice.

Entity Rodney made his choice. He focused on Atlantis and chose a time of great happiness. He bubbled this time into eternity separating it from all the rest then allowed the real timeline to continue, no longer lost to the whims of his team.

To those in the Pegasus Galaxy nothing was known of how Atlantis disappeared or where its people went. To those in Atlantis, Rodney returned.

….

When Rodney awoke in his quarters, he wondered only briefly whether all had been a dream. He hardly remembered the transition from entity back to corporeal form. All seemed to fade in the back of his mind, like a thought just on the verge of recognition. It would have been easy to brush it all away as unreal and continue from there.

Except one glance at his calendar told him only two and a half years had passed since his arrival on Atlantis. Most definitely the remaining three years could not also have been dreams. Only time travel made sense.

He struggled to place his thoughts in order, to make sense of this world in which he found himself. Carson would still be alive as well as Elizabeth and countless others. Jennifer might or might not have arrived on Atlantis already, he never could remember when she'd actually joined the expedition.

Jennifer.

In order to save the universe, Rodney separated Atlantis from time and reality. The city existed in its own bubble, away from all else. Those members not here yet would never come. Those members here would only leave upon their deaths. If he chose a time where anyone was away on a planet, they would never be a part of Atlantis either. To repair time he had to make it so Atlantis never existed-not for the terrans anyway.

Panic engulfed him. What if Sheppard or Ronon or Teyla were not there? No. No. He dared not consider Entity Rodney would make such a mistake. It was strange. He was okay losing Jennifer but he could not lose his team.

Hesitantly, Rodney reached for his neck, relaxing slightly as the steady thump testified to his beating heart.

 _If a man has a pulse then he is alive._ Rodney had a pulse. Therefore Rodney was alive. QED.

Beside him, his radio chirped. He ignored it, choosing to spend his time surveying his own quarters. He remembered so many adventures that no longer happened. He lived so many memories that no one else could share. He experienced so many friendships that could never again be as they were.

Could he really go back? Could he pretend he was the man he once was instead of the one he'd become? Who was he now?

He imagined the panic taking place in the control room as everyone tried to understand why the gate wasn't working. There would be no more check-ins. There would be no more alien incursions. There would be no transmissions from Earth.

Atlantis remained alone in its own existence and no one but Rodney knew this as truth. How did one explain such events? Should Rodney feign ignorance? Should he pretend to fix the gate knowing it would never be fixed? How would he explain the truth? Carefully? Slowly? Not at all?

He combed his quarters walking with a stranger's body. Pictures on the wall told him so much of what had happened while pictures absent told him what had never occurred. He found comfort in Carson and Elizabeth's smiles. They remained alive. For years, he dreamed he could bring them back or that he'd awaken and find he'd merely dreamed their deaths. Here, out of time and out of place, he found them safety and a home. His greatest hopes fulfilled but still he felt distressed.

Could he be the man he was? How much had he lost? How much had he gained?

His radio chirped once more. Rodney stuffed the headset in his pocket without answering. He drew in a deep, strengthening breath then left his quarters. How wonderful it was to hear Atlantis's hum. He watched the bustling of scientists and soldiers and immediately felt at home. For a moment, the panic lessened.

Rodney remembered the strange voice that prompted him to isolate Atlantis and save all of time. He never did discover who had spoken. Perhaps another entity as he was? So much was still unclear. None of it really seemed to make sense.

Did it matter? Did he need to understand in order for it all to be true? Once, a long time ago, not knowing could have driven him to madness, but now he didn't care. Carson was back. Elizabeth was back. _Rodney_ was back. What did the how matter as long as life prevailed?

He arrived in the control room to find Radek directing the scientists. "Finally!" Radek called, throwing his arms in the air. "All morning we called and you not once bothered to answer. Colonel Sheppard was ready to comb entire city searching for you."

"I forgot to change the battery on my headset. Gate problems?"

"According to these readings the gate is working fine but it can't lock with anything. Long range sensors find nothing. Short range sensors also find nothing."

"Nothing?"

"Nothing as in nothing. No stars. No planets. No other gates. Clearly something is wrong with our sensors."

 _Or not,_ he thought but only almost said aloud. The words faded before they could surface. Rodney knew he should tell them the truth but there was so much time for that later. For now, he gazed around him to John, Teyla, and Ronon, who watched him as though he hadn't died. He saw Carson and Elizabeth and they gazed back at him not knowing what a miracle it was for them to be alive. Life he'd granted them.

His panic ceased, replaced by indescribable warmth.

"There's nothing wrong with the sensors," Rodney finally managed to say. Radek started to object but Rodney continued, "There's something you all need to know."

He no longer feared telling them the truth. For all the endings he saw as Entity Rodney, he realized this was the best one. Here he could live without fear of the Wraith. Here he could be with his team and with Elizabeth and Carson and none of them would leave. Here he could find life and peace. Perhaps the universe had not forsaken him his happy ending after all.

The End

 

**Author's Note:**

> I found this in my stories I never finished file. I wanted to finish it but it's been a long time since I heard their voices. Thank you for reading. If you are looking for someone to SGA squee with, find me on DW (or LJ) as sgatazmy.


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